Hello! What a week. Been too busy to spit, let alone blog, so here's what I've been up to.
Firstly, I reviewed Patti Smith's moving memoir about Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids, in the New Statesman.
Secondly, my epic piece about the state of the young pop tribe in 2010 was the cover story of last week's Film and Music Weekly in the Guardian. Taking in scene, metal, goth, dancehall, grime and punk, it took 300 years to write, but the interviewees made it worth it. Thanks to all of you!
Thirdly, some of you may have heard me gabbing on 5 Live or BBC Wales about the sad fate faced by the brilliant 6 Music. I wrote about the rumours – now sadly established as fact – in last Saturday's Guardian.
Fourthly, another story about the BBC – this time looking at its incredible, experimental days when its in-house sound design unit, the Radiophonic Workshop, was allowed to invent and inspire new worlds of electronic sound. I wrote the piece for the Red Bull Music Academy's brilliant daily paper, The Daily Note, but you can also read it online here.
Fifthly (start to wipe the sweat off the brow now), I reviewed Krystle Warren at the Soho Theatre, again for The Guardian. She was good.
And lastly – although I have two pieces in the paper tomorrow, argh – in today's Guardian, I also have a piece on Haiti Vodou, a fantastic, home-made charity record put together by Welsh singer-songwriter Christopher Rees, who travelled to the country in 2002 to help local schools, and ended up getting immersed in voodoo drumming ceremonies – where priests would fill his mouth with rum and swing machetes against concrete. Go to Red Eye Music to buy a copy right now - I'm donating my fee for the piece to DEC too.
That's it for now. I'm off on holiday. Until Monday. See you then!
